Be Excellent To Each Other

Please do not get a tosswank to present the semi finished product...

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/07 ... e-at-last/

I just messed myself.

It has semi-turn based fighting! It doesn't look like Oblivion! It has Bloody Mess! It has a catapult that lobs small nukes at people!

I was preparing myself to hate this game. Now I'm starting to think it might be marvellous, which is dangerous.

I can't wait to watch this when I get home, as so far I haven't really liked much of the coverage of Fallout 3 - it hasn't told me much about the game or showed me much of a 'typical' scene in the game: a shot of your dad in the vault, a shot of you running in combat towards some ruins, at least two shots of supermutants (one of which must be the one with the fire hydrant), one of the ghoul, one of VATs and one of the Pipboy.

I could level a similar criticism against a lot of coverage of Oblivion that I saw - the PC Gamer review in particular was filled with pictures of the dreary Oblivion levels or of dark dungeons - hardly any of the magnificent vistas, bustling towns or cozy pubs.

I've always heard great things about the Fallout games, but have never checked them out, know nothing about them, and have never seen anything.

Tell me how daft I am and how much I've been missing out.

You're a twat and a noob?

Too right it's dangerous. There's a lynch mob of Fallout fans heading in your direction as we speak.

Brown + rats + brown + hexes + brown = Fallout

Fallout + Oblivion = OMG MUST HAVE NOW!!!!

It's not isometric.

It will be poo.

Clearly it needs playing to find out if it's actually funny, but it looks like there's a lot of the 'good things' about Fallout in that game.



Fallout Tactics was isometric. Your move.

It's not isometric.

Man, something that page does is making Safari VERY unhappy. Can't watch it!

I'm *clearly* not saying that just isometricism is all a game needs to be great, otherwise I'd still be playing Ultima 8.

The mob cares not. They have decided that it will be the worst game ever, and anyone who disagrees with them should be burned at the stake.

Because that's the sort of people fallout fans are.

Utter cat.

Had-to-do-a-double-take-FTFY.

*Several thunderous AWOOOOGAS issue forth from the Bollocks Klaxon*

Crikey. It's that good?

Also:

Fallout 1 and 2 are astoundingly good. ASTOUNDINGLY.

Fallout Tactics is meh.

Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel on the consoles is awful. We do not speak of it. Think Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance with guns.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance was awesome.

It's like the universe just collapse in on itself around the weight of that wrongness.

pah, it was like Gauntlet.

Mr Chris doesn't like Gauntlet, everybody! What a twatty wankmeister!

So how does semi-turn-based combat work then? Forgive me, as I don't play RPGs very much (I liked Oblivion, but didn't have the time to sink into it). Fallout 3 interests me a lot, but I don't want to basically be rolling virtual dice all game...

So how does semi-turn-based combat work then? Forgive me, as I don't play RPGs very much (I liked Oblivion, but didn't have the time to sink into it). Fallout 3 interests me a lot, but I don't want to basically be rolling virtual dice all game...

You can play realtime. Or, you can pause the game, and plan out your shots, with a %age hit chance given by body part you target.

Vaguely like KotOR.

I've never played that either (but I have Mass Effect that I haven't tried yet).

It's the same as in Oblivion*. It's not 'real-time' it just looks like it is, but feels a bit 'off' somehow. That's it right there, yo.

* in Mass Effect

Mass Effect isn't really like that. It is good though.

I... did not enjoy Mass Effect as much as *any* of the previous Bioware games that I have played (which is all of them bar NWN really, for no particular reason), or Oblivion or Stalker. Still, each to their own etc.

I'm surprised - I thought the combat systems were very similar, being sort of real-time-but-actually-it's-all-secret-maths systems. No?

I'm surprised nobody's drawn a parallel with X-Com Apocalypse yet. Perhaps because in that game, real-time was in fact far superior to turn-based, despite what the fanbois howled*.

Although, having said that, I am finding it harder to be optimistic about this one than I'd like.

*Note: I still love the turn-based original (and to a lesser extent the first sequel). But Apocalypse in real-time was all kinds of awesome. Anyone who's never sent their only non-wounded agent to storm an infested gang headquarters alone with a pair of rocket pistols and a jet pack, and finally won by levelling two-thirds of a building as they ran from the explosion while alien grenades and laser fire hailed around them is unqualified to dispute this.

Sorry CUS you posted at the same time as me, meant Mass Effect didn't have the system used in KOTOR or that will hopefully be used in Fallout.

KOTOR and the older Infinity engine stuff allowed you to pause the game and queue up orders for your character and the others. Mass Effect allows you to pause and give a single instruction to team mates, but your own characters stuff is done in real-time. Pumping points into skills does play with the maths and make you more accurate and do more damage though.

The big difference between this and Fallout 3 is the fact that Mass Effect doesn't differentiate between shots on different parts of the body, which is obviously a big thing for the Fallout games. But there's really no turn based element at all in Mass Effect - characters can fire as often and whenever they want, subject to weapon overloads and ability cooldowns. There's mathsy stuff behind it, but it's in no way turn based.

I really liked it still, but it's very much a hybrid game. I just happen to like sci-fi shooters and RPGS (I never played NWN either... doing Jade Empire for the first time at the moment though).

Fallout3 differentiates between different bits of the body? Awesome! The main bug bear I had with Oblivion was the fact you could drive 2-3 arrows directly into someone's face and they still were only knocked down by half their health. Human + 1 arrow in face = dead.

Yeah, that was one of the bigger disappointments to me, too - the absolute biggest failure of Morrowind was to make the combat any good, and it should have been the first thing that got fixed. It was improved, but by no means fixed. I mean, seriously, I thought it was embarassing enough when Resident Evil Survivor failed to have location-specific damage, and that was years ago. For pretty much any game to omit that nowadays, let alone one with a heavy, close-up fighting system, is pretty pathetic. Particularly if you're an archer - sixteen two-foot arrows sticking out of a two-bit bandit's head without even slowing him down is just awkward, however into the game you are.

Hopefully Mount and Blade will sort itself out before release, and stop pandering to the clueless spods on its forums and polish the potentially wonderful combat system instead of pricking about with stupid RTS nonsense.

Given that the other Fallouts made a big deal of this (down to being able to shoot people in the eyes), the exclusion of body specific aiming in Fallout 3 would have been the single most likely thing to cause the diehard Fallout 3 fans to invade Bethesda and dismember the design team whilst shouting "SEE?!?!? SEEEEE!?!?!?! I TARGET YOUR FACE!".

My semi interest in this game is swelling.

Never played the first 2, are they worth a look?

Oh my good lord, yes. More than anything else you've ever played, basically.

What I assume is the same trailer is now on Youtube, and I've been able to watch it.

A shame it makes it look like a blastfest, but c'est la vie. At least we now know how huge the world is going to be.

Too bad the charming Vault-Man graphics seem to have been diluted to work on the monochrome Pipboy screen.

I'm curious about the Enclave,



...but it's nice to see one of the seriously cool Vertibirds in proper action.

It's hard to tell whether the weapons are based on those from the previous two games or not.

I'm curious whether or not you're able to change your clothes to reflect your armour - the cutscenes of the original depicted you as looking much like your avatar does in the video: Vaultsuit with improvised shoulderpads, whereas in the games if you put on leather or metal armour or anything else, it was reflected as being a whole wardrobe change.

One or two of the screenies looked like they were of the main character in different suits of armour, I thought?

I'd be *amazed* if your character model didn't change to reflect your armour changes. It happened in Oblivion, didn't it?

re: Enclave: yes. I suppose.

re: Armour: Also yes. It's just the vagaries of previewing the game, I suppose, that compels them to show us a character with end-game equipment but starting out armour.

I really hope the targetting means that you can cause effects over and above damage, like you could in the other Fallouts. Blindness, a mild limp, and the like.

There'd be no point without the location specific effects.

Visual effects, you mean? I guess they won't be in there. Melting someone with the gauss gun was the best thing ever.

Mild limps!

Should I hunt down Fallout 1 or should I jump straight into 2?

No, I meant the mild and serious location damage effects to your character, like "limp", concussion", "blindness".

It seems from the screenies that there is definitely location specific visual gory deaths, as one shot of a leg coming off and another of a head exploding testify.

Play 1 first.

Why are you assuming they aren't? You still have stats, so there's no reason being shot in the head couldn't temporarily reduce your PER, which is exactly what it does in the previous fallouts.

These are pea sea games though aren't they? Can you play them on your mac?

Mac too!

Plus I have a ZOMG BookPro now anyways.

The main bugbear I had with Oblivion was that the optimal tactic was to run backwards away from your opponent firing arrow after arrow until they keeled over looking like a hedgehog with male pattern baldness.

In oblivion, how did it handle having a point and shoot interface for ranged attacks along with a skill level? If you had your crosshairs pointing at a bad guy when you fired, was it an auto-hit or did it take stats into account? I imagine FPSers will be annoyed by Fallout3 if they are lined up dead straight on a bad guy, pull the trigger, and miss because of low shooting stats.

Equally, if it doesn't take stats into account, that renders the stats redundant.

If memory serves, the main thing that changed as your stats went up was the damage your arrows did. It definitely wasn't a Deus Ex-style wobbly crosshair.